Palestine Solidarity Committee
Call to oppose increasing military and trade ties with
Israel
Narendra Modi is all set to be the first Indian Prime Minister
to visit Israel.
This is what this first really means: closer military and trade
ties with Israel.
Closer military ties with Israel make India complicit in Israels
war crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories. The Israeli
military industry, the largest industry in the country and perhaps
the main prop of the national economy, is fully a part of the
Israeli war machine that occupies Palestinian lands, makes Gaza an
open air prison, and imposes apartheid policies on
Palestinians.
India's desire for closer military ties comes at a time when
even Israel's close supporters in the international community, are
staying away from arms trade with Israel. Many countries such as
the UK and France have declined to participate in the seventh
annual Israel Defense expo that has just opened in Tel Aviv.
Closer trade ties with Israel means that India will flout a
growing international movement of boycott, divestment and sanctions
against Israel, and help whitewash Brand Israel -- by conducting
business as usual with a country that does not respect
international law.
Added to this, is the hypocrisy of pretending that closer ties
with Israel, which is occupying Palestine in open violation of
various UN resolutions, can be forged side by side with continued
support to the Palestinian cause. The announcement of PM's visit
shows that the Indian government has forgotten what Gandhi, Nehru
and India's freedom movement said about Palestine. No wonder
Israel's Ambassador Daniel Carmon celebrates this loss of Indian
official memory by saying "High level visits between both
countries... are a natural ingredient of tightening relationship
between Israel and India."
We, as Indian citizens of conscience, protest this tightening
relationship, and demand that the government put an end to
military, trade and other ties with apartheid Israel.
Githa Hariharan, Sukumar Muralidharan, Prabir Purkayastha,
Pushpamala N
for
Indian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel
(InCACBI)The Palestine Solidarity Committee in India
B-130, LGF, Shivalik, Malviya Nagar, New Delhi 110 017
